EGR removal/blanking on 3.0 TD series

I'm planning on blocking the EGR with a steel plate at the exhaust manifold end, as described in various posts I have seen.

I do have some questions before starting this job though:

1. Is anyone out there still selling the plates, to save me having to make one myself?

2. Some posts refer to the need for a small hole in the plate, to prevent warning lights being activated. Is this necessary for my model? Won't the small hole just allow a smaller amount of nasty gas into the inlet manifold?

3. Does the blocking plate need to be sealed with exhaust paste gasket or anything else?

4. If I want to remove the intake manifold to clean it, will this come off without disturbing any fuelling settings, injectors etc? Can I clean it effectively just with carb cleaner and toothbrush?

5. I plan to leave the EGR unit in place. I presume once blocked off with a plate, I can leave all the vacuum hoses in place on the unit?

There are various threads for 120 series, intercooler models (which mine is not), D4D models etc. Just wanted to be sure what I'm taking on for my model please.

1. I doubt it but search ebay .
2. Your truck doesn't need a hole .
3. It's up to you i just used bare steel figuring manifold rust will likely weld it on and its never to come off again anyway .
4. Don't know i have never had the intake side off , but it may interest you to know you can remove the throttle butterfly without taking it off .
5. Yes .

1. I doubt it but search ebay .
2. Your truck doesn't need a hole .
3. It's up to you i just used bare steel figuring manifold rust will likely weld it on and its never to come off again anyway .
4. Don't know i have never had the intake side off , but it may interest you to know you can remove the throttle butterfly without taking it off .
5. Yes .

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Thanks Shayne. Most helpful.
On point 4...I'm imagining that the butterfly will be covered in coked residue but presumably also the inside bores of the inlet manifold?
Presumably I would need to remove this to clean it properly, or will it sort itself out once the EGR is no longer recirculating the muck through it?

I don't think it will clean itself but i have never felt the need perhaps because i ran several tins of egr cleaner through the system before blocking the EGR .

CAUTION !

egr cleaner can trash your engine if used incorrectly and some on here won't even look at the stuff .

I have used it on both my 1kz and my d4d many times with no problem at all (with great results on the d4d) .

If you do go down this route try and imagine the cleaner is like spraying nitro into the intake (see fast and furious lol) so the instant you hear the revs rise stop spraying or else you will red line and more .

I don't think it will clean itself but i have never felt the need perhaps because i ran several tins of egr cleaner through the system before blocking the EGR .

CAUTION !

egr cleaner can trash your engine if used incorrectly and some on here won't even look at the stuff .

I have used it on both my 1kz and my d4d many times with no problem at all (with great results on the d4d) .

If you do go down this route try and imagine the cleaner is like spraying nitro into the intake (see fast and furious lol) so the instant you hear the revs rise stop spraying or else you will red line and more .

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Thanks Shayne, heard someone else (maybe you or Bob) mention the dangers of the spray cleaner on this site before. What about the liquid fuel additive type...will that do a similar trick with less risk?

If you remove the entire intake, you'll need to remove all injector lines to get it out. Not a big deal, just be careful with the exposed injectors not to get any dust/dirt in there. After about 150,000 miles my intake had a good amount of carbon build up, I'd say 5mm+ of thick gunk. Removing it can be beneficial if it's this bad and cleaning it out.

You have two options with the EGR. You can remove the unit and blank it with a plate, or you can keep the unit in place and sandwich the plate. There is no real benefit of keeping the unit in place. It takes up space and all remaining vacuum hoses can be blocked off without any trouble, or without throwing any errors. With it removed, theirs a lot more space behind the engine to work with. Your choice. You'll see upon removing it how much of a pain it can be and how much easier it is just to put back the plate and be done with.

If you remove the entire intake, you'll need to remove all injector lines to get it out. Not a big deal, just be careful with the exposed injectors not to get any dust/dirt in there. After about 150,000 miles my intake had a good amount of carbon build up, I'd say 5mm+ of thick gunk. Removing it can be beneficial if it's this bad and cleaning it out.

You have two options with the EGR. You can remove the unit and blank it with a plate, or you can keep the unit in place and sandwich the plate. There is no real benefit of keeping the unit in place. It takes up space and all remaining vacuum hoses can be blocked off without any trouble, or without throwing any errors. With it removed, theirs a lot more space behind the engine to work with. Your choice. You'll see upon removing it how much of a pain it can be and how much easier it is just to put back the plate and be done with.

Succeeded in rounding off the top nut holding the EGR to exhaust manifold...and that was the easier one to get to!

Rather than persisting with a job that I haven't got time to see through properly at the moment, I have left the EGR for now, cleaned up the throttle body as best I can and run through a can of EGR spray cleaner.

I still want to remove the EGR but will attack this when I have time to see it through. I've ordered a set of nut extractors and splitters, but can foresee the whole exhaust manifold coming off to get to this properly.

Now equipped with the right tools, I’ve had another go at the EGR mod and have decided to remove the whole EGR unit (I’ll keep it just in case it ever needs to go back on for some reason). I also wanted to remove the inlet manifold and give it a thorough clean while I’m at it.

I bought some extra tools, noting that I started to round off the EGR bolts on the exhaust manifold side during my first attempt the other day. I therefore bought a set of Laser six-point spanners (about £50) and also a Silverline damaged bolt remover kit (about £20). In the end, the six-point spanners did the trick even on the nuts that I had already started to round off.

As a guide to anyone else looking to remove (or blank off) their EGR and give the intake a general clean up, this is how I went about it…

Remove intake pipework from air filter to turbo… 10mm clip at turbo end plus bolts on two plastic legs holding pipework down to head (12mm I think), and one electrical connector to unplug. I also removed the airbox itself to create a bit more room to work, as it’s only held in by three easily accessible 12mm bolts.

Then off with the metal intake that runs from the turbo to the inlet manifold. A pinch clip on the turbo side and four 12mm nuts attach it to the butterfly housing on the inlet manifold. There are two electrical plugs to disconnect and four vacuum hoses at the back near the bulkhead. There is also a clip around one of the heater matrix coolant hoses, which needs to be unbolted from the metal intake. There are also two throttle cables to disconnect.

Next there are two arms bolted to the head, which carry the throttle cables. Remove these as it will create space and make it easier to wriggle out the metal heat shield from around the exhaust manifold, which needs to come out next… five 10mm bolts hold the shield in place and some are awkward to get at. The shield will feel like it won’t wriggle free but be brave and it will come free if you pull upwards and outwards, away from the exhaust manifold.

You should now be looking something like this (I’ve covered the exposed turbo ports with plastic to stop anything dropping inside them). The butterfly housing in the second picture only looks like this because I cleaned it when I aborted the EGR job previously…it was caked in black goo!

I also disconnected the heater control bracket from the bulkhead (10mm nut) as this will improve access for later.

I then attacked the EGR fixings at the exhaust manifold end, hoping that I could remove the inlet manifold later with the EGR still fixed at that end. This didn’t work out as there wasn’t enough room to wiggle the parts free (the EGR pipework runs through a tight space between the rear of the head and the bulkhead), so I also had to remove the EGR fixings from the inlet manifold end while it was in situ.

Firstly the EGR fixings on the exhaust side… a 12mm nut on stud is upper fixing, and a 12mm bolt is lower. This is where the six-point spanner came into its own. There isn’t much room but once the nut/bolt is cracked off, it wasn’t too bad. I had already removed the top nut before I took the photo.

If you are blocking the EGR (rather than removing it), you need to sandwich a blanking plate between the EGR pipe and the exhaust manifold. Do this now and reassemble…you’re done!

I wanted to lose the whole EGR though, so onwards…

Then the EGR fixing on the inlet side is two 12mm nuts. Again, awkward to get to but easy enough once cracked off. There is a vacuum hose and an electrical plug connected to the bottom part of the EGR unit (below the flying saucer thingy). Disconnect these and I would advise you to separate the lower part of the EGR by undoing the two small bolts, as it will make the next step easier.

You are now ready to wiggle out the EGR (assuming you are removing the unit). Hope you like swearing! It is a tight fit and the studs sticking out of the inlet and exhaust don’t help much. I used a pry bar to encourage the EGR body past the studs and after some trial and error, found that moving the whole unit towards the exhaust side of the engine bay was the way to go. I was then able to twist and wiggle it out by bringing it upwards over the back of the rocker cover. Once it’s out, this is what you have removed (note the bottom part separated as mentioned above…don’t think I would have got the EGR out with this still fixed in place) …

I then blanked off the hole in my exhaust manifold with the smaller of the two blanking plates supplied in the kit I bought off eBay (RTG Automotive £8.99), using exhaust sealing paste to ensure a good seal. The original nut & bolt will hold the plate without the need for any spacers on the exhaust side.

I then set about removal of the inlet manifold, to give it a good clean. The manifold itself is held in place by eight 12mm nuts. All are easily accessible, except the lower rearmost one – again prepare swearwords! You will need to remove a few other bits that are bolted onto the manifold and remove some of the bolts fixing the power steering fluid reservoir, so that you can swing it away from the manifold, to give room to slide it off the studs. I then uncoupled the diesel injector pipes, and cable tied some plastic around the open ends to avoid contaminating them. Ensure that the various plastic guides & clamps holding the fuel pipes are removed, so you can gently bend the pipes out the way as you draw the inlet manifold off its studs.

Having removed the inlet manifold, I realised how awful the EGR system is. The insides were caked in about 5mm of syrupy black sludge! I used a round edged palette knife to scrape as much of this out as possible, then bathed the insides with petrol and went to work on scrubbing the bores with old toothbrushes. I then finished it off with brake cleaner and the bits I could get to have come up nice and shiny. I did the same on the exposed inlet bores in the cylinder head, which were in the same state. I also fixed the larger of the EGR blanking plates from the set onto the inlet manifold. The studs are not threaded all the way down their length, so you need to make up some spacers prior to using the original nuts to hold the blank in place. I added some silicon gasket on this for good measure. Here’s how the manifold looked prior to refitting…

I then refitted everything, primed the diesel pump to get rid of any air in the fuel lines and while I had the airbox out of the way, I bled off the water trap in the bottom of the diesel filter. The bled off fluid looked nice and clean though.

When I first started the engine, there was a nerve jangling ‘diesel knock’ and I turned the ignition off immediately. I tried again and got same result. Then a third time and all was normal. I presume that the remnants of brake cleaner and/or petrol fumes in the intake system caused this and it quickly burnt off.

I then carefully ran a can of EGR cleaner through the intake for good measure, in the hope that any sludgy mess that I couldn’t reach will be cleaned out.

I’ve got a run from Cornwall to the Scottish Highlands and back next month, so will be interested to see how she drives and what MPG I’ll be getting.

Hope this helps anyone who is looking to do the EGR mod on a 3.0TD (there are some different procedures with doing this mod on the D4D engine). Thanks to those who offered forum advice to me previously and feel free to correct anything that I might have got wrong.

Excellent write up. Many thanks. I'd love to know if you genuinely notice any difference. Even if you don't, it's nice to know you've added a few years to your engine (but it's always good if you can feel the difference too)

Excellent write up. Many thanks. I'd love to know if you genuinely notice any difference. Even if you don't, it's nice to know you've added a few years to your engine (but it's always good if you can feel the difference too)

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I'll be reporting my findings!

On another note, I don't really understand how to attach the photos to my post and I ended up going around in circles (took longer than doing the work on the vehicle lol!). I did have circles and arrows on my original saved photos, to help identify the points I was trying to make, but when I copy & pasted the photos into the script, the circles/arrows have disappeared. Hopefully it is self-explanatory though.

. I also fixed the larger of the EGR blanking plates from the set onto the inlet manifold. The studs are not threaded all the way down their length, so you need to make up some spacers prior to using the original nuts to hold the blank in place

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but did not follow you when you quoted the above sentence as i thought you only blank off the egr valve and i have ordered the blank plate from same seller as your good self just by coincidence and same price.
Thaks very much knicko and .

but did not follow you when you quoted the above sentence as i thought you only blank off the egr valve and i have ordered the blank plate from same seller as your good self just by coincidence and same price.
Thaks very much knicko and .

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Hi Tony.

If you are leaving the EGR unit in place but just blanking it off, then yes you can just slide the blanking piece between the exhaust manifold and the EGR pipe.

If, like me, you want to dispense with the EGR unit completely, then you will need to blank off the remaining holes on both the exhaust and inlet manifolds.

You get two blanking plates (smaller for exhaust, larger for inlet) in the kit that I bought.

Hello guys .
Well today i went about doing my egr blank with mayor help from knickos post and all went well as no siezed or rounded bolts.
Anyway put every thing back together and just like knicko was the nervous start.
I was very suprised when it started first time with no problems till around a few mins later when the car started to shudder like it was fireing on just 3 injectors.
I went over all the injectors and checked for loose connections but all were tight.
Then started the car again and still shuddering but let it run an the as thought may have oven cleaner fumes in the system.
I noticed the rev counter spike slightly and a cloud of white smoke for a few seconds and then would just shudder agaln.
This made me think i was correct about the fumes but as the rev spiked got a faint clunk noise then the white smoke appears.
After 5mins the car calmed down and no more shuddering and revved ok but now getting a loud ticking noise from the engine but no smoke and no eml light on .
Any ideas as dont realy wanna drive it case its a major fault and breaks down on me .